Daniel Pieter Antonie "Danie" Schutte (born 13 June 1947) is a South African politician and lawyer who was the last Minister of Home Affairs of the apartheid era from 1993 to 1994.
In that capacity, Schutte was centrally involved in planning the historic 1994 general election, South Africa's first to be held under universal suffrage.
[5] In addition, he became acting provincial leader of the NP's Natal branch after the incumbent, Jurie Mentz, defected to the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in early 1993.
In a 1995 interview with the Mail & Guardian, Schutte told Mark Gevisser that he did not acknowledge any need to apologise for having served in the government that enforced apartheid:I was not the architect of this system.
[7] He represented the party in the Portfolio Committee on Justice, which during this period held prominent debates about the controversial Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
[3] Gevisser speculated that he was "positioning himself to take up the reins of the tough 'new right'" of the NP,[3] and he was viewed as a relatively important strategist in the party, alongside Roelf Meyer, Hernus Kriel, and Marthinus van Schalkwyk.
[9] Though Schutte was the most prominent right-wing challenger to the frontrunner, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the Mail & Guardian observed that he had little support outside Natal and almost none in the party's black caucus.
[12] However, in June 2002, Schutte returned to the public eye when he was elected as co-leader of Nasionale Aksie, a new political party he had founded with Cassie Aucamp.